Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 3 Sivan, 5783. 47th day of the Omer.

As we move towards Shavuot and the giving (more importantly receiving) of the Torah, we are focused on the last few attributes of this 7 week journey.

Today we focus on the Hod of Malchut or “Humility of Sovereignty.”

From Chabad:

Sovereignty is G‑d‘s gift to each individual. Hod of Malchut is the humble appreciation of this exceptional gift. Does my sovereignty and independence humble me? Am I an arrogant leader? Do I appreciate the special qualities I was blessed with?

Exercise for the day: Acknowledge G‑d for creating you with personal dignity.

My thoughts on Sovereignty and Humility really come from the idea of boundaries.  If we believe we are sovereign beyond ourselves? That is where problems begin – especially as we are discussing love.

Likewise, a lack of boundaries creates problems – who we give sovereignty over us.  One place I hear this often within me, my kids, my friends – “He made me feel angry!” or “You make me happy!”

As I unpack this, I am stuck with the realization that when I allow my feelings to be “owned” by someone else? That is a problem.  Can another truly control my feelings?

What if? What if – as we explore our emotions and feelings, the truth ends up being – we can’t control them?  Our feelings come and go like the weather?  Sure, there may be emotional triggers our brain has created that help us survive – but those triggers belong to us, don’t they?  We have sovereignty.  It’s hard because we are often unaware of these emotional triggers.  So it appears that someone’s behavior IS making us feel a certain way.

As I was studying Tibetan Tantra, what stuck with me is the idea of anger.  Anger is often connected to the concept of clarity.  The reason we are angry is because something that was NOT clear to us – something we were struggling to accept – something we may hold out hope or even expectations on – has come to light as not being true.  We are clear. And this clarity is connected to the feeling of anger.  But we don’t control the clarity, and so we don’t control the anger.

This is where sovereignty and humility begins.  This idea – a lot of things are influencing us and impacting our reactions without us even realizing it.  And instead of looking at ourselves with curiosity – which would combine humility and sovereignty, we judge ourselves and others.  “You made me angry.”

One final note on this topic.  As I was meditating this morning, the coach shared this concept of feelings and identity.  The hypothesis was “there is not some central independent controlling entity that is running the show inside of me.”  That was mind blowing.  Because I put a lot of stock and pressure on myself to do a good job at “running the show” and judge myself when I believe I’ve done a bad job.

But it’s the difference between “I am angry” vs. “There is anger.” or “I am afraid” vs. “There is fear.”

“I am emotionally activated” vs “There is emotional activation.”  One is judgment. One is curiosity.

Curiosity seems to be “the move” in these moments.  WHY is there anger? Not why am I angry? WHY is there fear vs why am I afraid? WHY is there emotional activation vs why am I emotionally activated.

The framing there seems to matter, doesn’t it?  It’s “owning” the feeling and trying to control it as an identity, vs observing the feeling and getting to the heart of it.  It’s there. anger is there.  Why? Is it because something is now clear that I wasn’t sure about?

What are your thoughts?